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GlossaryDispatch and call records

Call priority

Call priority is an agency’s urgency classification for a public-safety request. Priority codes differ locally and are not measured response times.

Call priority is an urgency classification assigned to a public-safety request to help determine the order and manner of response. The agency defines its own levels and assignment rules. A priority number does not have a universal meaning, and it is not a measurement of how quickly responders actually arrived.

How priority helps organize a response

Communications staff must distinguish requests that indicate an immediate threat from those that can wait. Priority records that operational judgment based on the information available. The call type supplies the general subject; details such as whether an event is ongoing can affect urgency.

San Diego's published Dispatch Priority System illustrates a local scale. Its August 26, 2019 document describes immediate-dispatch levels, less urgent service requests, and a separate category for telephone reporting. The document calls the scale a guide and allows a higher or lower priority when circumstances warrant. San Diego priority definitions.

That structure shows why a priority code is a label rather than a simple quantity. A code for telephone reporting is not a measured amount of urgency. Averaging priority numbers would obscure their meanings unless an agency had established a specific, defensible method for doing so.

Example

Hypothetical example: A caller reports damage to an unoccupied parked car discovered that morning. The agency initially assigns a routine-response priority. During the call, the caller reports that a person is currently threatening someone nearby. Staff reassess the request and assign a more urgent priority under local rules.

The change reflects new information. It does not show that the earlier assignment was necessarily mistaken. An export containing only the final priority would omit the earlier assessment; one containing only the initial priority would omit the escalation.

Suppose the record also shows assignment at 10:12 and arrival at 10:20. Those timestamps indicate eight minutes between those two events. The priority code helps describe the included request, but cannot substitute for the timestamps or explain every part of the interval.

Common confusion

Priority is not severity established after investigation. A request can be treated urgently because of a credible reported risk even if responders later find no injury or offense. A serious offense discovered after the fact may have no immediate threat requiring an urgent dispatch.

Priority is not a guaranteed arrival time. An instruction such as “dispatch immediately” describes the agency's intended dispatch handling. It does not mean a unit arrives immediately or that a particular number of minutes is promised.

Priority is not the call type. “Traffic collision” describes an event category; the presence of injuries or a blocked roadway can affect the urgency assigned to that event.

Comparing records fairly

San Francisco's dispatch explanation states that call priority, like call type, may be adjusted as information develops. A comparison must therefore specify whether it uses initial, final, or another recorded priority. San Francisco dispatch workflow.

For a response-time chart, identify the eligible priority groups, interval start and end, and handling of canceled or incomplete responses. Keep the same rules across the periods being compared. A change in the mix of urgent and routine requests can shift an overall response-time measure even when performance within each group stays similar.

When reading an unfamiliar code, consult the agency's priority reference for the relevant date. Do not import another city's meanings simply because both agencies use numbers from one to five.

Sources